1. Today marked Debbie's first day of full time employment in Kellogg School District #391. She joins Mom, Christy, Carol, and Paul as members of our immediate family who have worked as full timers in the Kellogg district. Today was mostly a day of staff pictures snapped, welcoming meetings, informational meetings about procedures and policies, and other first day kind of subjects. Debbie also worked on setting up her classroom.
Back when I was a sophomore at Kellogg High School, one of my English teachers was Mrs. Clark(e). She and her husband purposely moved from job to job around the country, using their ability to find employment as a way to experience a variety of towns and regions in the USA.
Debbie did not, back in 2008, when she started teaching full time in Eugene, set out to teach in a variety of districts, but, as it turns out, that's what has happened. Suffice it to say, the Eugene's School District 4J is very different from Maryland's Prince George's County School District and neither has many (if any) similarities to Kellogg's School District #391.
Let me be clear: saying they are vastly different from one another is a descriptive, not an evaluative statement.
My point is that Debbie has, is, and will be learning more about the great distinctions that exist in different regions of the USA by working so closely, as teachers do, with students, parents, and fellow teachers in three vastly different school districts that really have very little in common with each other.
This was a major topic of discussion at family dinner tonight, as expected.
Our dinner was simple and superb. We started with a cocktail called The Godfather that combined Scotch whiskey with Amaretto liqueur and enjoyed Molly's peerless bruschetta appetizer. These preliminary treats paved the way for Carol's garden fresh green salad and the delicious feta tomato baked pasta dish she prepared as our entree.
Discussion continued about teaching elementary school and possible directions to take things and before long Christy brought out her version of an Italian Cream Cake and Carol served us flight snifters of Sambuca, an anise flavored Italian liqueur. We took a detour or two from discussing pedagogy in third-grade instruction, including Christy's report after taking Riley to the vet and discovering he has a handful of treatable maladies that are causing him discomfort. Christy was relieved to find out what Riley had contracted (some of it could be allergies) and is set to treat him with different prescriptions.
2. Earlier in the day, I leapt into the Camry and rocketed uptown to the Backcountry Cafe (118 McKinley) and enjoyed an 11:30 lunch with Mike Stafford and Ed. Mike had been on a fly fishing trip in Montana and was headed back west. I knew the Backcountry Cafe served grinders with generous stacks of thinly sliced meat, but I didn't want to eat that much food for lunch. I soon learned, though, that the Backcountry Cafe has an extensive menu with choices ranging from brats to fish and chips to a wide variety of grilled cheese sandwiches, and much more.
A grilled cheese sandwich sounded more like the size of meal I wanted, so I ordered a grilled Swiss cheese and bacon sandwich on rye and, once I added yellow mustard to it, it hit the spot just right. For my side, I ordered a pasta salad which was, to my surprise and delight, packed with bits of cheese, salami, and tiny green olive pieces, making it both tasty and substantial.
3. Back home after lunch, I watched a fascinating classic British movie, An Inspector Calls (1954).
It's a tricky movie to say a lot about because it turns out to be a very different story than what the majority of the movie leads us to believe is going on. The way the movie concludes opens up fascinating possibilities for how the movie might be interpreted. I can say, though, that no matter how one interprets it, the story focuses on human interconnection, the ways in which the results of decisions people (we) make ripple out, have impacts beyond one's (our) imagining.
Watching this movie, in the end, reminded me in possibly an odd way of my reading over the years of Thich Nhat Hanh. His understanding of Interbeing led me to see that everything we do has an impact that reaches far beyond ourselves or even our immediate world. The characters in An Inspector Calls must face this very fact and how each character responds to what they learn gives this movie its depth. It's not a Buddhist movie, but if one has some understanding of Buddhist insight into interconnectedness and the precious value of each moment of life, this way of seeing things, at least for me, illuminates the movie and possibly opens the door to what the story's original author, J. B. Priestly, was inviting us to see in the movie.
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